Nation

Kidnapped woman rescued

MALACCA: A 22-year-old woman believed to have been forced into prostitution after being abducted a month ago was rescued by the police from a two-storey building that formerly housed a DAP service centre in Taman Seri Krubong here.

The victim told the police she was abducted by three men last month and brought to the shophouse at about 10pm on Monday.

Melaka Tengah OCPD Asst Comm Salehhudin Abd Rahman said the petite woman broke open a room door and sought help at about noon yesterday.

“Members of the public then called the police and we prised open the locked grille before rescuing her at about 2.30pm,” he said at the scene. The premises still had the signboard of the political party at the entrance when the police moved in.

ACP Salehhudin said the woman looked exhausted and was traumatised.

“We have sent her to hospital for medical attention. We are now tracking down her captors,” he said, adding that the police would speak to the victim again when she felt better.

ACP Salehhudin said the woman was allegedly forced to be a sex worker after befriending one of her captors in June following her split-up with her boyfriend.

It is learnt that the victim, formerly a resident of a welfare home in Perak, had followed her boyfriend here, but he later abandoned her.

State DAP chairman Goh Leong San said the party stopped using the premises in 2006.

“I don’t understand why the signboard has not been removed but I can confirm that we stopped using the place eight years ago,” he said.

Meanwhile, state MIC chairman Datuk M.S. Mahadevan, who was at the scene, said the captors could be part of a syndicate prostituting gullible runaway girls.

“Such cases have happened here before. We are also curious about how the captors obtained the shophouse keys,” he said.